I actually thought it was really good how many Hurricanes shirts were in the crowd yesterday in amongst the various Phoenix, Brazilian, and Tottenham away strips. Even Taranaki rugby shirts, which is the ultimate in sharing the spirit.

And that “For Phoenix Stand Up” chant was pretty special.

On twitter after the game there was a fair amount of bah-humbugging at the supporters driving about with horns going and jerseys hanging out the windows

But then, magically, the crowd started singing the Home and Away theme song.

Really? Gosh. I must've taken the wrong exit...

But DAMN! What a great atmosphere. I've been to rugby games here and overseas, and to a few football games in the UK - and I often feel vaguely unsafe or unwelcome in those crowds. But this crowd just wanted to sing and chant and see the Phoenix win. It was awesome.

And the chanting must've scared the bejeezus out of the Jets... they just didn't seem to be able to ignore it.

I knew the Phoenix would go through the moment I saw Elrich wearing a blue shirt. He's got to be the worst player in world football, and he proved it in spades were given the ball and a minute to spare alone in front of our goalie. What a klutz.

Wasn't always so. The myth of the passionless people is just that. I was taken as a small boy to the mammoth 13-11 encounter at McLean Park between Hawkes Bay and the 1977 Lions and my overwhelming memory of that day now is of noise, of a unique and peculiar roar of the New Zealand provincial rugby crowd. What a roar rugby crowds used to make in the big matches!! None of this namby pamby chanting and shirt waving. It was the kind of hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck raising roar that you imagined would have greeted the arrival of the gladiators in the amphitheatre. That roar is gone from rugby crowds now, probably killed forever by professionalism. It is telling that Phoenix, which for all it’s foreign players and playing of the most professional game there is basically perceived as a team of local heroes, is getting crowd support the detached pro rugby setup can only dream about.

Personally, I think the jury is still on whether or not the Phoenix is genuine phenomena or just a backlash by a stale and bored public sick and tired of wall-to-wall rugby for ten months of the year.

Something that I don't think has turned up in the local media here (yet -- perhaps they didn't want to tempt fate), is the fact that the FFA want to keep the Phoenix out of the Asian Champions League should they win through. From the Age...

The Asian Football Confederation does not even want Wellington to play in the A-League, never mind its flagship club competition.

FFA has always said Wellington cannot play in the ACL even if it qualifies.

I was taken as a small boy to the mammoth 13-11 encounter at McLean Park between Hawkes Bay and the 1977 Lions and my overwhelming memory of that day now is of noise, of a unique and peculiar roar of the New Zealand provincial rugby crowd.

There's wonderful photos of Carisbrook in the 20s and 30s when it was just banks and there's over 40,000 people in them, all dressed up, standing shoulder to shoulder. A few women, but must have been just about man and boy in town. A bit too refined to sing and chant, but apparently they made plenty of noise when the teams scored.

The game? Dunedin club rugby game, Saturday afternoon. Bigger audience than a modern day test normally gets.

Went out at 6 pm when it was 1-1. Drove back through Wellington after 7.15 trying to decide from the demeanor of the numerous yellow-themed people walking away from the stadium street whether the Phoenix had won. They actually looked a bit grim and subdued (but probably just relieved after the marathon game), so we presumed they had lost. Took a few kilometres and right passed the stadium until we saw anybody acting celebratory, and heard a few toots.

I was taken as a small boy to the mammoth 13-11 encounter at McLean Park between Hawkes Bay and the 1977 Lions and my overwhelming memory of that day now is of noise, of a unique and peculiar roar of the New Zealand provincial rugby crowd.

Don't get me wrong, a rugby crowd will yell, and boo, and shout, and swear. But they don't really do flags or chants. The noises tend to be solely reactionary rather than fill in singing during a build up.

While not as good a chant, I remember singing 'ya can't beat Wullingtun' with the rest of the Millard Stand at Athletic Park as a kid, not to mention the chants we'd get going at Central Vikings games with the students.

If you can get a decent amount of people going, everyone will join in. Look at the singing at the Sevens. It's just that everyone's too nervous to start it [evidenced when I tried to get a friend to join me in 'who are ya' when C. Spencer subbed off last week.

Something that I don't think has turned up in the local media here (yet -- perhaps they didn't want to tempt fate), is the fact that the FFA want to keep the Phoenix out of the Asian Champions League should they win through. From the Age...

Nah, the media over here ran many many stories about that this time last year, because someone had wondered 'what if Waitakere and the 'Nix both made it to world club champs?'

Don't get me wrong, a rugby crowd will yell, and boo, and shout, and swear. But they don't really do flags or chants.

I can't agree with you. The idea that New Zealand was a dysfunctional, monochrome Polish shipyard populated by grim Jack Mulgans prior to the Rogernomics revolution is one of the most annoyingly pernicious myths there is. I remember growing up in a prosperous province with it's own paper(s), ZB station - it even had it's own soft drink factory (Gilberts) and department store (McGuers). Thursday night was late night shopping night and the streets would throng with crowds of an egalitarian societies prosperous working class - wharfies, freezing workers, and the like. Rugby crowds were ferociously provincial and seem to have made prodigious amounts of noise from rattles, stomping of feet and yelling. It was the ripping of the heart out of provincial New Zealand in the long provincial depression from the mid 1980's to the late 1990's that killed a certain vibrancy that existed, and saw the closing and meaning of the provincial mind that is still with us, and seems to me reflected in the crowds that show up for rugby these days.

I feel the same way about "Same old Aussies, always cheating". A bit of amateur dramatics is standard in football - you can't tell me the Phoenix players never ham it up a bit to get a penalty or free kick.

I could be wrong but part of the joy of football chants is that they reflect the game and general feeling of the time, rather than the deathly grip of win or don't show your face around town tonight. That pervades Christchurch. (Away teams follow this rule regardless of the outcome).